Harlequin Superromance December 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Caught Up in YouThe Ranch She Left BehindA Valley Ridge Christmas

by Beth Andrews

  Penny had given him her cell number, in case he had an emergency with the rental. He hoped she wouldn’t mind being asked for a personal favor instead. He wouldn’t have asked—in fact, he’d deliberately steered clear of her for the past few days. But Ellen came first, and, other than the people in this conference room, Penny was the only person in Silverdell he knew well enough to trust.

  The thought flitted through his mind that he didn’t really know Penny very well, either. He’d been in Silverdell maybe eighty hours, and everyone he knew here was the same: an acquaintance of about eighty hours.

  But he dismissed the overly literal logic of that. Some things weren’t counted in hours. He trusted Penny Wright, and it didn’t matter whether he could explain it. Trust was born on some other level entirely.

  Luckily, she answered on the second ring.

  “Max?” Her ordinarily warm voice was guarded. He wondered if she dreaded seeing his name on her caller ID. Maybe she didn’t have a lot of spare cash, and she was afraid the pipes had exploded, or the roof had caved in. “Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “No...” Still, she sounded careful. “I’m at the ranch with my sisters.”

  “Oh.” Darn. He’d have to think of a Plan B, and fast. Maybe she could recommend a sitter. “I’d been hoping that... But if you’re busy, then—”

  “I’m not busy. I mean, I’m not too busy to help, if you need something. We’re just chatting.”

  He heard female laughter in the background. She put her hand over the phone a minute, as if dealing with someone in the room.

  When she spoke again, her voice was more normal. Maybe she’d stepped out to get privacy, as he had. “Really, I’d be glad to help, if there’s anything I can do.”

  She sounded sincere. Something relaxed inside Max for the first time since the idiot had begun blathering two hours ago.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’m stuck at the office, but Ellen will get home on the camp van in the next half hour or so. Is there any chance you could meet her at the cottage, and keep an eye on her till I get home? It shouldn’t be more than another half hour after that.”

  He looked through the window toward the conference room, where The Big Deal had put his feet up on the table and was leaning back, absently plucking at his belt as if he wished he could loosen it and get comfortable.

  Needed more room for all the hot air, presumably.

  “At least I hope it’ll only be half an hour,” Max amended honestly. “And I guess I should warn you...I promised Ellen I wouldn’t ever work late like this again. So she’s probably going to be mad.”

  * * *

  PENNY GOT HOME in fifteen minutes, thinking she’d have time to change clothes, maybe make a cup of tea. She knocked on Max’s side of the duplex first, just in case, but no one answered. So she left her door open, listening for the van, and slipped off her pretty flowered skirt, kicked off her heels and tugged on a pair of jeans.

  The yellow gypsy shirt, with its smocked neckline and cuffs, would have to stay as it was. No time to take it off. She had an angry little girl arriving any minute.

  But another twenty minutes came and went. Penny started to be nervous. She paced out onto the road, looking for the Starling van. She knew it well—she would have recognized it anywhere, even if she hadn’t seen it tooling around town, looking just the same as it had seventeen years ago.

  Same bright orange paint. Same busted springs and bumpy lurching over railroad tracks. Some childhood traumas you never forgot.

  The road was empty. This wasn’t a busy street, backing up on the elementary school as it did—at least not until school started again next month. Frowning, she went back inside. Maybe she should call Millicent and see how many stops had been on the driver’s route. She might also call Dallas and see if there had been any accidents downtown, the only spot likely to create a traffic jam.

  She’d just picked up the telephone when she heard Ellen’s footsteps outside the door. Thank goodness.

  But then she realized she hadn’t heard the van. That was strange. It was so quiet out...just wind in the trees and birdsong. She couldn’t have missed the rumble and sputter of a van like that, could she?

  She turned, smiling. “Hey, there,” she started, and then came to an abrupt stop.

  “Miss Wright. Come quick.”

  Penny’s heart raced. Ellen’s voice was thin with distress. What had happened? Had there been an accident after all? What about the other children?

  She moved quickly toward the door, trying to assess Ellen’s condition. The child’s face was splotchy, as if she might have been crying, but she stood normally, and Penny couldn’t see any blood.

  But...what was going on with her ear?

  Ellen was backlit by the afternoon sun, so it was hard to be sure, but...

  Penny came closer. The little girl didn’t move. Penny bent and put her hands softly on Ellen’s shoulders, so that she could look more carefully.

  Dear heaven. Ellen’s glossy brown hair was piled up on her head with plastic toothy clips, but just on one side. And there it was. Penny hadn’t been imagining things. On the bared side of the girl’s head, a silver sewing needle protruded from her earlobe, which was gently seeping blood.

  “Oops,” Penny said calmly. Ellen’s eyes were wide and panicked. She didn’t need an anxious adult screaming questions at her. “What’s going on here?”

  She tried to touch the needle, thinking she might be able to slip it out quickly, but Ellen flinched and drew back.

  “You have to come quick,” the girl said again. “Hurry. I don’t know what to do. It’s Alec.”

  “Alec?” Penny stood. The needle was very fine, and it had done its damage already. If necessary, taking it out could wait until Ellen was calmer. Right now, Penny needed to find out what was going on with Alec.

  Ellen led her wordlessly down her front steps, then up the steps that led to the rental side. She pushed open the door, but she didn’t enter. She stood as if frozen, pointing toward the floor.

  “There. I think he fainted.”

  Penny didn’t take time to process what she saw in words. If she had, she might have fainted, too. The sight of Alec, mischievous, lively Alec, lying in a heap on the living room floor, was enough to take her breath away.

  Instead of thinking, she acted. She knelt beside him, confirmed that he was breathing...thank God, thank God...and slipped her fingers into his mouth. His tongue was where it belonged.

  So far so good. His skin wasn’t hot to the touch. There was no blood. No limbs twisted at strange angles, no bones jutting out.

  She rocked back on her heels and took a deep breath. Maybe he really had merely fainted.

  But why?

  She was pulling her phone out of her pocket to call 911 when Alec suddenly opened his blue eyes. When he registered Penny bending over him, it seemed to take him half a second to sort things out. Then his eyes went impossibly wide, his mouth formed a perfect circle, as if he were blowing smoke rings, and he clambered to his feet.

  “Oh, heck. Heck! What the heck happened?”

  Ellen, who had tentatively tiptoed through the doorway and now stood just a few feet away, her shadow almost touching Alec’s body, made a contemptuous noise. “You fainted, that’s what happened, you poser! I knew you didn’t know anything about piercing ears!”

  Alec narrowed his eyes to angry slits. “How did I know you were going to start gushing blood like a stuck pig?”

  Penny stood, putting her hands between the feuding children like a referee at a boxing match. Which this might become in a minute or two, if she didn’t stop them. Ellen and Alec were both clearly scared to death, and embarrassed—and both were the type who couldn’t tolerate those emotions without lashing out.<
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  “Hang on,” Penny said, still keeping her tone calm. “I need to know what’s going on. And I need to hear it from one at a time.” She glanced from one heaving, fiery little body to the other. “Ellen, it’s your house and your ear. Why don’t you tell me?”

  Alec grunted, but he didn’t interrupt. Ellen didn’t look at Penny while she talked. She kept her furious gaze on Alec, as if daring him to contradict her.

  “My dad didn’t come get me, so I had to come home on the van. Which he said I would never have to do. Then he wasn’t even here. So Alec came over, and he said he wanted to pierce my ears. He said he knew how.”

  Her delivery sped up at this point, as if to discourage questions. Obviously this was the tricky part, and Penny suspected that the girl didn’t have permission to entertain friends when her father wasn’t home. Or to pierce her ears. Penny didn’t mention any of that, though, because right now she just needed the facts.

  “But I knew he was lying. He didn’t even numb my ear right, because it really hurt.” Ellen looked indignant, as if Alec had deliberately tricked her. “And then, the minute he put the needle in, he passed out.”

  Alec reared up to half again his height. “I did not.”

  “Oh, yeah? What were you doing down there, then? Counting the threads in the carpet?”

  “Well, it was gross.” Alec hadn’t stopped scowling since he stood, but his face was like a thundercloud now. “You’re a bleeder, that’s what you are, like one of Gray’s sick horses. Besides, it’s a lie that I wanted to do it. You asked me to do it. But if I’d known what you are, I wouldn’t ever have done it.”

  “Done what?”

  A shadow fell into the room as a new, larger figure appeared in the doorway, his back to the setting sun.

  For a split second, the tableau of three froze. Penny stood in the middle, arms stretched, one palm gently turned toward each of the red-faced children. Alec’s finger was midair, jabbing toward Ellen.

  Ellen, of course, still had a winking, silver needle hanging out of her ear.

  And, of course, her daddy had chosen that moment to come home.

  CHAPTER SIX

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER—after making a call to Rowena—Penny, Max, Ellen and Alec crowded into the small kitchen, preparing for surgery. Penny was working hard to remain outwardly calm, for Ellen’s sake, though she was angry with Alec and just a little flustered by this intimate proximity to an angry Max.

  He was powerful and radiated energy even when he was at his mildest. Now, worried for his daughter and furious with her simultaneously, he was almost overpowering.

  “You sure you don’t want me to do this?” Max’s dark gaze met Penny’s as she plucked an ice cube from his freezer, having promised to numb Ellen’s ear before she touched the needle.

  “Dad, no!” Ellen’s voice thrummed. She was perched on the countertop, her hands squeezing the edge until her knuckles turned white. “I want Penny to do it!”

  Max backed away, and Penny shot him an apologetic glance. Ellen must have felt a woman would be more understanding. Judging from the frown on Max’s face, she might have been correct.

  One of the silver cooking pots was still sitting on a burner, with an inch of water cooling in it—evidence that the kids told the truth when they said they’d tried to sterilize the needle by boiling it. A small jar of alcohol and a bloodstained cotton ball on the counter told the rest of the tale.

  From the corner of her eyes, Penny noted that Alec wasn’t watching the procedure, little chicken. He leaned against the doorjamb and picked at the brand-new wallpaper. Penny touched his shin once with the side of her shoe, to tell him to stop it, and he did. But he still slouched sideways, staring at the wallpaper stripes as if they were the only interesting things in the room.

  Penny took her time, making sure Ellen’s ear was so cold the little girl couldn’t feel a thing. The girl was so terrified Penny wondered how on earth Alec had ever talked her into this in the first place.

  “You know, I’m still trying to decide which flowers to plant behind the deck,” she said lightly, plucking a topic out of the blue, hoping to distract Ellen while they waited for the ice to take effect. “I want bird feeders, of course. And I’d love to attract butterflies, so I’m thinking pentas and maybe lantana.”

  No reaction. Ellen wasn’t a budding gardener, then. Okay. Something more interesting...

  “And I have a gazing ball collection, so I need to arrange that, too. I’ve been making gazing balls for years. I brought them all with me from San Francisco.”

  Ellen looked up, finally curious. “What’s a gazing ball?”

  “They’re glass balls people put in their gardens, all sizes and colors. They reflect the light and flowers and things around them. They’re really pretty. I make mine out of bowling balls.”

  As she’d hoped, that got Ellen’s attention for real. “Bowling balls?”

  Penny took that moment to do the deed, sliding the needle free as deftly and quickly as she could.

  “Yep,” she responded, dabbing a piece of cotton to catch the drop or two of blood that followed. Alec was right—Ellen did bleed easily. “They’re superheavy, which is good because they won’t blow around in a storm. I put little pieces of colored glass all over them, making pretty mosaics. I’ll show you sometime.”

  She held the needle up in front of Ellen’s face. “Here you go.”

  The girl’s eyes widened. “You got it out already?”

  Penny nodded, smiling. She hoped Ellen might smile back.

  But then, as if her courage had finally stretched too thin and popped abruptly, like a balloon, the girl started to cry. She fell forward onto Penny’s shoulder, hugging hard and making gulping, sobbing sounds. Penny’s eyes met Max’s over Ellen’s weeping head.

  He looked as if the sight of her tears pained him—but awkward, as if he weren’t sure any effort he made to console her would be welcome. Within seconds, Penny’s shirt was soggy, and Penny had no choice but to hug her back.

  “Oh, brother,” Alec said, but Penny bumped his shin again to shut him up.

  The doorbell rang, and they all knew it was Rowena. Alec groaned, but he made no move toward the door, since it wasn’t his house. Max touched Ellen’s back once, softly, and then went into the living room.

  Still holding Ellen, Penny listened as Max greeted Rowena. For several minutes after that, Ro’s voice was the only one she heard. Her sister was clearly apologizing all over the place, something she was probably getting pretty good at, considering how often Alec was in trouble.

  Suddenly Rowena’s voice grew louder, and very stern. “Alec!”

  Alec blanched. He glanced at Penny, as if she might be willing to hide him.

  “Go on,” Penny said quietly. “It’ll be all right. Nobody actually died.”

  “Aw, man.”

  One good thing about the crazy kid—he did know how to take his medicine with grace. He inhaled deeply, squared his skinny shoulders, gave Penny a look as grave as a soldier, then marched out to face Rowena.

  “Is he going to be in big trouble?” Ellen spoke the question into Penny’s shirt.

  “Not really,” Penny said honestly. “My sister tries to be strict with him, and sometimes she makes a lot of noise, but he pretty much has her wrapped around his finger. Her and everybody else. He’s pretty persuasive, as you probably noticed.”

  She had hoped that might make Ellen laugh, but apparently she was striking out today. Ellen just sniffed.

  “Hey, there.” Penny touched Ellen’s hair. “Want to meet my sister? I think you two might like each other.”

  Ellen lifted her head, but shook it. “I can’t. She’ll know I’ve been crying.” Her brows knit together. “She’ll think I’m a baby.”

  “Well, let’s see.” Penny smoothed
Ellen’s hair, then brushed away the remaining dampness from her cheeks. When she had adjusted her collar and checked the ear one more time for blood, she smiled.

  “Nope.” She pronounced the verdict with conviction. “No one could guess a thing. You look fine.”

  She stood back so Ellen could hop down from the counter, and tossed the cotton balls into the under-counter trash can.

  “Besides,” Penny added casually, as if it had just occurred to her. “It probably would look more grown-up to come out and be polite. It would show Alec you’re doing fine. And it would prove you’re not afraid. Which, of course, you aren’t.”

  Ellen frowned. “Of course I’m not,” she said, pulling down on her shirt, which was a little snug over her blue jeans. “It was just weird to have a needle hanging out of my ear, that’s all.”

  Penny hid a smile. This was almost too easy. Growing up with Rowena had been like a master class in handling people like Ellen. Once Penny had couched it in terms of pride, Ellen had no choice. She had to stand up and put on her game face. She was desperate to erase the impression of those tears.

  She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, in an unconscious imitation of Alec’s earlier moves. That wasn’t really me, hugging you in front of everybody, the posture said. That wasn’t really me, crying like a baby.

  Penny’s heart tugged toward the brave little girl. It wasn’t easy being so proud. She’d seen it so clearly with Rowena. If you didn’t allow yourself to ask for the love you needed, you often didn’t get it.

  She had the strangest sense of protective frustration, wishing she could teach Ellen a better way to handle her emotions. She didn’t want her to have to wait until she was a grown woman, as Rowena had, to mellow and let people in.

  And Ellen was lucky—she didn’t really need to wait. Unlike Rowena, she had a loving, patient father, just standing by, hoping to get a chance to shower affection on her.

  But Ellen wouldn’t listen, even if Penny had felt she had the right to tell her any of that. She didn’t know Penny well enough yet. She didn’t trust her. In fact, trusting people seemed to be one of Ellen’s most basic issues.